"To nab" means "to sieze", which implies Google bought out Square Enix.
Better title might be, "Google taps Square Enix".
Google nabs Square Enix and other game developers for native client Chrome games
31–40 of 47 posts
Re: Google nabs Square Enix and other game developers for native client Chrome games
#32//Black hat on The main concern for me with native client is webgl and the exposure of 3D device drivers to the Internet. These drivers were not written with this use in mind there have been webgl vulnerabilities in the past: http://www.contextis.com/research/blog/webgl2/ While Google will be aware of these and actively working to provide a buffer with via validation and sandboxing, with pessimistic hat on, I can see…
That's a valid concern; I know another HN user who might chime in with more detail to back it up. On the other hand, Google has built a particularly good security team for low-level systems code problems like this, and they've done things (like the NaCL security contest) to attract the right kind of attention from researchers.
I wonder how much Google feels comfortable with this level of risk due to the speed with which they are able to push out updates and the rate at which their clients autoupdate themselves.
Re: Google nabs Square Enix and other game developers for native client Chrome games
#33The advent of Native Client combined with this move means the Chrome Web Store is going to end up positioned as a direct competitor to Steam.
That's pretty interesting, honestly. It'll mean great things for consumers: I bet playing a game in your browser could be really convenient compared to downloading and installing Steam and then going through the motions for that platform. But Steam has 7 years on the Web Store with all kinds of great platform features like Steam Play, Cloud, Wallet, etc.
An exciting time to be a web and game developer, to be sure!
Re: Google nabs Square Enix and other game developers for native client Chrome games
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google is very similar. They do open up a lot of stuff, and provide a lot of free stuff too. They have a lot of talented people as well. But their base strategy is to control our most powerful tool. For that you need to kill standards. And hey, talented people sure know how to put things on the right balance, at the right time. I'm not sure who you think can compete with Google. For most people "the internet" is Goog…
"I'm not sure who you think can compete with Google. For most people "the internet" is Google.com." I thought the meme was that for most people facebook.com is the web? All Google cares about is that whatever tech is out there doesn't prevent them from displaying Ads to as wide an audience as possible. This is a very different motive than what Microsoft has which is to control your entire PC experience.
Google has more or less been playing by the "open, free, web standards based" rules until it's browser got too big to fail.
Then started pushing out things like NaCl that aren't standard, and while open, very hard to implement in a way that stays compatible to Google (and arguably not something you want to implement if your focus is web standards of course).
To make sure of that, you buy how some game studios to release for that platform, and eventually only on that platform (See Bungie+MS, since you like these examples).
This is a lock-in, and that's the first extinguisher, and the worth part: it's only the tip of the iceberg we're starting to see.
Wanna wait til it gets bad for everyone just cause you like Google? Then you'll get in the "oh noes, Google deceived us" in 3-5 years?
Well, it'll be far too late. Better to voice things now (and it may already be too late).
Re: Google nabs Square Enix and other game developers for native client Chrome games
#35How does native client solve the ARM vs Intel issue? Can a fat binary be created so apps run on both an ARM Chromebook and an Intel PC? Finally, can native client be adopted by Opera and Apple for use in their browsers?
Re: Google nabs Square Enix and other game developers for native client Chrome games
#36How does native client solve the ARM vs Intel issue? Can a fat binary be created so apps run on both an ARM Chromebook and an Intel PC? Finally, can native client be adopted by Opera and Apple for use in their browsers?
Native Client does not solve the portability issue. Portable Native Client is a research project trying to do that, but it is unclear whether it will succeed, and if it does, with what compromises (speed, security, etc.)
Native Client can in theory be adopted by other browsers, since it is open source, however no other browser has shown interest, the opposite in fact. Native Client is a nonstandard technology that will remain only in Chrome.
Re: Google nabs Square Enix and other game developers for native client Chrome games
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
You'd think it would be good to see the problems this will unleash on openness before it's too late and we have to say 2 years down the road, on the next embrace-extend move, that Google has a history of this. Google is using their muscle to push for the adoption of a Google-exclusive technology in browsers that Google's competitors have said they cannot support because it is not truly open. If you can't see that thi…
> adoption of a Google-exclusive technology in browsers that Google's competitors have said they cannot support because it is not truly open no, they aren't supporting it because they think it is a bad idea, which is a very, very different thing.
They are different, but both are true here, and they are related.
It's not truly open because it is not standardized, nor even proposed to be standardized, and it relies on other non-standard technologies (Pepper). Also, it is incompatible with the open web because it is not hardware-independent, which is another type of openness it lacks.
Re: Google nabs Square Enix and other game developers for native client Chrome games
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
> proprietary Chrome API You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. From Wikipedia: """Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.""" Nothing of thi…
"Proprietary" ≠ "proprietary software".
You think proprietary software is software that you can't use without license, but proprietary API is something other than an API that you can't use without license?
Re: Google nabs Square Enix and other game developers for native client Chrome games
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you know what the solution was for XNA? The last time I checked, all the Mono XNA ports were in miserable shape. Considering Bastion makes use of shaders and mixed mode 2d/3d rendering, it seems like it must be running on a high quality port of a large portion of the XNA stack.
Replying to provide follow-up detail: I dug into the executables and it looks like it uses OpenTK for rendering and FMod to sound, instead of using a port of XNA. Both are freely available, so that's a pretty simple path to doing a similar port for other XNA games. Neat.
Wow, wow, wow.
So, can someone write a tutorial about how to develop a C# OpenTK + FMod application, and get it running on Mono, in Native Client?
That would be awesome to see.
Re: Google nabs Square Enix and other game developers for native client Chrome games
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
For now, that is true. However, NaCl is moving to the Pepper API, which is a proprietary Chrome API for plugins.
> proprietary Chrome API You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. From Wikipedia: """Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.""" Nothing of thi…
I mean the dictionary definition of "proprietary": controlled by a single proprietor, in this case Google. Google proposed the Pepper API on the plugin-futures mailing list a year or two ago, but Mozilla and Apple believed that it was unnecessary to maintain a parallel Pepper API for plugins to use when Web APIs were already there (and could be improved where they were not sufficient). Google implemented and pushed Pepper anyway. Thus, proprietary.
Likewise, Google is not open to input regarding the direction of NaCl, or whether it is a good idea for the Web. It is also proprietary.
Whether proprietary-but-open-source technologies are good for the Web is a separate discussion -- clearly, Mozilla and Google disagree. But it's unarguable that NaCl and Pepper are proprietary technologies.